The Happiest Place on Earth...

     After another cross-country drive, and a quick visit with Mom, Grandma Kurland, and Great Grandma Daniels in Colorado, I pulled into Anaheim, California. Before I ever did some apartment hunting, I drove around the outside of Disneyland and just soaked in both the joy and the anticipation of knowing that on Monday morning I would walk through those gates into a brand new career working behind the scenes. 

     Even though I would be leaving my performing life behind (for a season of indeterminate length) I somehow knew that I would most likely find and outlet of some kind to keep me sharp being in front of an audience and who knows what that might look like?

     But, for the near future, I would be supporting performers and producing shows that would be entertaining the good folks who would come to Disneyland expecting excellence in everything they encountered. Wow…what an amazing opportunity!

     After the required preliminaries with the Personnel Department, I was ushered into Bob Allen’s office, and it was truly a wonderful reunion. He took me down to meet my new boss, Bob Jani, the Vice-President of Entertainment. Bob Jani turned out to be, hands down, the most creative, innovative, out-of-the-box and entertaining thinker I had ever met, and to this very day, I really don’t think I’ve ever met his equal in those departments. In my later executive and leadership life, I would find myself mimicking his methods and style in managing both people and projects. In meeting Bob Jani, I could feel deep down, in that very moment, that I was in for one heck of an exciting ride.

     It was the height of the summer season (early July) and the Park was in full operation. They put me in charge of the Tomorrowland Stage, where top name talent would entertain every night. I had a team of technicians to manage and we would run the lights and sound for two performances per night.

     The very first show for which I was responsible starred the giant movie star and long-time Hollywood Legend, Debbie Reynolds. She was absolutely fabulous. An amazing singer and an even more amazing dancer and she was a huge hit with the Disneyland audiences. Her young teenage daughter came along with her and roamed the Park all night while her Mom was working hard performing. The daughter – Carrie Fisher, who you would come to know as Princess Leia was a real handful but great fun too.

 

     The next big act turned out to be a group that I already knew – The Supremes. By this time, Diana Ross had left the group but I remember Cindy and Mary, and what’s really cool, is that they remembered me from the concert back at Red Rocks Amphitheater. “What are you doing here?” was their greeting for me. “I’m doing your lights and sound…welcome to the Happiest Place on Earth.”

     Along with prepping and running the shows in Tomorrowland, I was also responsible for the Big Band shows at Carnation Gardens Plaza just off the Hub in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. This was a bit of heavenly nostalgia for me, because my Mom (your Grandmother) was the singer with some of the great Big Bands of the 1930s. Also, remember that I had played trombone in the big bands in both high school and college. Big Bands and their music was one of my true joys in life. And, one of the best experiences that summer was working with Bob Crosby and his fabulous big band. Bob was music legend Bing Crosby’s brother and a very delightful and talented gentleman. We had a really good time working together.

     One of the most fun moments I had that summer was being a Disney Character for a day. Being a manager, we were all required to spend a day in a costume and interacting with the park guests just as the full-time Characters did every day. I drew the overly-happy dancing orangutan from Disney’s animated classic movie, The Jungle Book – King Louie! What great fun!

     But, also what really hard work! The costume was very hot and very heavy. King Louie’s arms were very, very long so inside the costume there were steel rods that I had to hold onto to move the arms. That was okay just walking around, but they were absolute murder to dance in! Yep, dancing. The Character Show in the Carnation Gardens Plaza took place every afternoon and one of the featured acts was King Louie and Baloo the Bear dancing…wait for it…The Charleston! I think I lost 10 pounds that day. Not only did I have great fun that day, but I also gained a deep appreciation for the folks who wore the Character costumes day in, day out. And I began working with them more and more as I produced and managed certain shows. They become a great part of my Disneyland life.

     One of the more interesting behind-the-scenes sidelights was that there was an extremely strict schedule for the characters. It was absolutely forbidden to have any of the same characters active in the Park at the same time. You could not have Mickey Mouse or Goofy working the crowd in Main Street and have another set of Mickey/Goofy showing up in Frontierland or Small World at exactly the same time. The characters had supervisors with them that watched the clock with exactness and precision to ensure that duplication never, ever happened. Cool, no?

     Every now and then I had to stop and pinch myself. Was this really happening? Was I really an actual employee (cast member) of the place I had dreamed of working in since I was a wee small kid? Yes, yes I was! And loving every moment!

     Summer was finally over, and the Park schedule changed to a shorter week and the nightly shows were wrapped. It was now late September and my work life was changing into a much less frantic routine.

     Until…Bob Jani called me into his office one day and asked me to move to Orlando, Florida to help open Walt Disney World.

     What!?!?!?

     Talk about an absolute high! I was beyond excited! I was going to be in the original cast of what would become one of the most fabulous destination resorts in the entire world! Yes, remember that from the very moment I had met Bob Jani I could feel that working for the Disney organization was going to be a fabulous experience.

     And…this just kicked it up to a brand new level of “thrilled”.